Qualcomm, a company that designs and manufactures chips for mobile phones and other electronics, is acquiring Arduino — the Italian company known for its open-source hardware and software ecosystem. In its statement, Qualcomm emphasizes that Arduino will “retain its brand and mission,” its open-source philosophy, as well as “support for chips from a variety of manufacturers.”
“As we enter a new chapter as part of the Qualcomm family, Arduino will retain its independent brand, tools, and mission, while continuing to support a wide range of microcontrollers and microprocessors from various semiconductor manufacturers,” Qualcomm’s press release states. “Following this acquisition, the Arduino community’s more than 33 million active users will gain access to Qualcomm Technologies’ powerful technology stack and global reach. With the support of Qualcomm Technologies’ cutting-edge technologies and extensive partner ecosystem, entrepreneurs, businesses, technology professionals, students, educators, and enthusiasts will be able to rapidly prototype and test new solutions, with a seamless transition from prototype to commercial product.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, and it is noted that it still needs to be approved by regulators and meet “other customary conditions.”
Although Qualcomm repeatedly emphasizes that Arduino will continue to exist as an independent ecosystem, users are already voicing concerns. After all, when a large company acquires an open-source project, it often ends up restricting the ecosystem. The community worries this could lead to reduced support for third-party chips and might also mean refocusing Arduino’s efforts on Qualcomm’s larger enterprise customers.
The first fruit of the upcoming deal will be the Arduino UNO Q device — a single-board computer positioned as the most powerful Arduino board ever made, equipped with an STM32U585 microcontroller (MCU) and a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 chip.
The developers say the single-board computer will have a “dual brain”: a CPU capable of running “standard Debian Linux” (a jab at Raspberry Pi OS, which is a fork of Debian), as well as a microcontroller for real-time tasks, intended to combine “high-performance computing with real-time control.”
The QRB2210 is equipped with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor and a Qualcomm Adreno 702 GPU, and also supports Bluetooth 5.1, Wi‑Fi, eMMC memory, and classic Arduino headers for compatibility with UNO shields, combining all this with a real-time microcontroller.
New connectors have appeared on the back of the board, designed to leverage the Dragonwing SoC’s capabilities.
The UNO Q can be used as a standalone device by connecting a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to it (as with a Raspberry Pi). It can also be used in conjunction with a PC running the development environment.
Initially, the UNO Q will ship in two versions: one with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of eMMC storage priced at $44, and another with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC storage, which will go on sale next month for $59.
In addition, a new development environment was introduced alongside the UNO Q — Arduino App Lab. It is designed to unify the real-time workflow with code, Linux applications, and — thanks to Qualcomm’s involvement — AI.
App Lab is integrated with the AI-focused Edge Impulse platform, which Qualcomm acquired earlier this year. This is expected to streamline the creation and optimization of AI models. In addition, users will be able to import pre-trained models from the Qualcomm AI Hub platform.
“Joining forces with Qualcomm Technologies will allow us to accelerate our mission to make technology accessible and innovative,” says Arduino CEO Fabio Violante. “The launch of UNO Q is just the beginning. We want to give the global community powerful tools that will make AI development intuitive, scalable, and open to everyone.”